In conventional printing systems, the printing preferences displayed when a document is printed are typically default printing preferences applicable to all documents, regardless of the type of document or other factors. Default printing preferences are associated to the account used to login in the computing device, particularly in Microsoft® Windows® systems. Similar situation apply on other computing platforms. At best, default printing preferences apply to specific users.
Every time a document needs to be printed, the same system default printing preferences are selected for the document automatically, even if user desires a different set of printing preferences for the document. The user must re-configure the printing preferences each time the document is opened, to ensure that the printer control settings he/she desires to apply for the print job are in effect.
In some work environments, a workstation is shared among several users. This may be the case for example in a laboratory, school, or anywhere there's a limited supply of computer workstations. In these environments, the login session may be shared and common for many or all users. Users share the same set of default printing preferences for the currently logged-on account. There is no mechanism in place to remember or retrieve the desired printing preferences that a particular user may desire, unless that user creates a new user login profile. The overhead of creating one's own profile on a computer system is an unnecessary inconvenience in this case. Another inconvenient alternative is to manually copy the printing preferences from one of the user's computing devices to another.
FIG. 1 illustrates a printer system 100 for Windows operating systems. The printer system 100 comprises a print subsystem 106 that includes a graphics device interface (GDI)/device driver interface (DDI) print driver 112 and an XML paper specification (XPS) print driver 114. The printer system 100 further includes default printer control settings 116 and a print setting graphical user interface (GUI) 118.
A Windows Application 102 generates an XPS doc 108 for printing on a Page Description Language (PDL) printer 122, and a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Application 104 generates a Windows Enhanced Metafile (EMF) doc 110 for printing on the PDL printer 122 or on an XPS printer 120. Default printer control settings 116 for all users and documents of the print subsystem 106 are stored and presented as printing preferences, and when a document is selected for printing, the print subsystem 106 provides the default printing preferences to the Windows Application 102 and the WPF Application 104 in the print setting GUI 118 (the default printer control settings 116 may vary between the PDL printer 122 and the XPS printer 120).
In the printer system 100, when the user creates, edits and prints documents (e.g., XPS doc 108, EMF doc 110), the document-editing application (e.g., Windows Application 102, WPF Application 104) is presented with the default printing preferences for the currently set default print driver (e.g., GDI/DDI print driver 112, XPS print driver 114), or in some cases, for any print driver it finds installed in the computer system. The user must then re-configure the printing preferences as desired for the particular user, document, document type, document location, team, organization, etc. Reconfiguring the printing preferences in turn reconfigures the printer control settings that the printer system 100 applies to the current print job.
Existing solutions that enable departmental or team shared printing preferences require the designation of a specific printer for use by the department. This is usually accomplished through the installation and setting up of a print queue from a network printer (i.e., shared printer) where all users printing through the print queue are assigned common default printing preferences. Such solutions do not provide for distinguishing printing preferences among members of the department or team.